Remembering Summer

My first blog--here goes--Gulp!

   

The summer started out early and garden-friendly.

 I had an early summer garden visitor that taught me that I should be wearing garden gloves.  Luckily, I  had picked him up with a long-handled grabber, thinking that I was looking at an old fashioned pottery cup handle of some kind.  I kept him until later in the day to show my little grandson.

 I've been hoping to see little Snakey again but haven't.  From the pic he looks the size of an anaconda, but actually was a little bigger around than a pencil.

For a while my zinnias, petunias, and roses were looking so pretty.  Then came the scourge of Japanese Beetles and then the hottest driest summer I've ever seen.  I had planted a lot of zinnias for the hummingbirds, but this year I attracted the fattest, greediest yellow finches.  I saw them several times perched on the zinnias plucking out petals to eat the seeds.  It looked like confetti under the zinnia plants after they had finished their Finch Fiestas.  After the beetles, finches, heat and drought, even my little gardening "Grand" and other cherubic help were not enough.

Now my last zinnia plants look like this.

 My Kimberly Queen Fern was an amazing surprise.  Who would have thought that a fern would have thrived under the conditions we had this summer.  With daily watering and bright shade this is how she grew.  I would highly recommend this fern to everyone.

 I have only one pot of petunias still flourishing in full sun.  When I planted this one in the spring, I had the idea to use a strip of cotton sock cut in a 1/2 inch spiral coiled all through the soil and wicked out the bottom of the pot.  I put a large bowl under it to keep it watered from the bottom.  In the pic below you can compare the colorful wick-watered petunia to the not wick-watered petunia that is the pink one.

My Knock Out Roses are back after having tiny dried out potpourri like blooms during the hottest driest days of summer.  They are here  by my garden statue.  I must admit that I Pic Monkeyed around with this picture and had fun with it.  I love Pic Monkey.  I started using it after hearing good things about it from Pat at Corn in My Coffee Pot.  I have now got a Pic Monkey on my back and can seriously  lose track of time while using it.

I am so ready to Welcome Fall!

Here goes--I'm taking a deep breath and hitting Publish!